Chinese TV... a bit like Western TV of the 50s with Steptoe-and-Son-esque 相声 and horribly un-PC portrayals of the foreigner.

Still, I laughed.

Is this the place to complain about the lame laff track that gets tacked on to shows like this? Awful, awful. It's a funny enough setup as it is.

ah ... to be a foreigner in china. where's the dignity?

i would have paid him twice his stipend to *not* film that segment.

has anyone thought of founding a Laowai Consolidated Benevolent Association" to help recent and not-so-recent arrivals establish themselves in china without resorting to language-monkey antics?

just a thought.

Perhaps the Mr. Bean Laowai could be tracked down and given a STRICT talking to about undermining ones self worth!

I like it, they are actually making a bunch of puns, it's poking fun at the Chinese language+ the odd comedy antics that are weird, it's ok...

His name is Sam Voutas, an Australian living in Beijing.

He must be tracked down and stopped.

Although this is just as terrible:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/ZdbGbwXKW38/

And I wouldn't say Sam's first episode of Laowai Laile is a bunch of "nice language puns" like the one above:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/GltLvyR4vCM/

Strongly agree with Alex -- this is pre-PC "funny-furriners" stuff.

'Allo 'Allo springs to mind... Or any/all of the Carry On films...

Stuart,

It looks that one you linked to was filmed in the Qingdao area?

didn't even raise a smile.

Da Shan has explored all this stuff before and couldn't make it work. I don't suppose a Mr Bean rip-off is likely to succeeed where the Big Mountain failed. This isn't slapstick either. Slapstick does not require the jokes to be explained with subtitles!

I only hope that this guy is doing this with a mind to it leading to something else a lot better - and quickly.

i wake up early on the weekends for class, and i need something nice to get me going. Im very sensitive and this is not fair to me. I want to tear out my blue eyes and crap all the hanzi out of my brain.
Whats worse than the experience of this is the fear of my corporate students finding out about it and me having to discuss it with him.
Nothing of this has to do with anything actually occuring, except that Mr. Bean was a real tv show.
I pray to jesus that the laowai can zou le.

This short is laughing at the dumb laowai on the surface. Deeper, it is laughing at Chinese for thinking every laowai with a little Chinese is capable of translating. The laowai said clearly 'I'm just a foreigner' at the beginning. The main actor is also the director. IMHO, the real reason for laughing is not the dorky laowai but naive Chinese.

I actually quite like the bit in the meeting before the puns start flying. I sometimes audit a translation course, and the instructor has been pretty strict about how we must translate the only the words the clients say, not add anything else in (no he saids or they thinks). I reckon that would tickle her.

does anyone have an email address for this guy, Sam Voutas, so that we--the concerned community of foreigners in China--can ask politely that he stop this disgrace before we see fit to stop him ourselves?

MR. BEAN? More like MR. BRUCE DERN (look-a-like). Poor chap looks like a raincoater from an "Art" Cinema than a Mr. Bean.

Am I alone in thinking this was kinda funny? China doesn't have any kind of monopoly on crass humor based on stereotypes... just ask William Hung, Sasha Baron Cohen, Dave Chappelle, or any other celeb who exploits cultural tension for a laugh. When China stops kissing my shoes for speaking Chinese and overpaying me for jobs I'm underqualified for based on my skin color I'll be more concerned about this teeny little TV show and its 'Un-PC' portrayal of foreigners.

In the meantime, I'm buying myself a goldfish and naming it Bill Gates.

I thought this was quite funny, and I'm going to show it to my Chinese-studying friends back home as a cautionary tale about the importance of tones.

Foreigners fluent in Mandarin won't find this funny because there's no way anybody can confuse the Chinese word market with "10 sausages"

I agree with Joel that the laugh track and simulated applause is quite annoying as well, but that's obviously the best CCTV can do.